Will Parrish, ANDERSON VALLEY ADVERTISER
The “discussion draft” of the Russian River Irrigation bill has not been released publicly. So, as a public service, the AVA will offer a copy of the bill on its website.
California’s slow-mo adoption of groundwater regulations is prompting all sorts of legal maneuvers by the state’s irrigation elite, who are striving for the fewest restrictions on their pumps possible. In the Russian River watershed, from where I write this dispatch, arguably the irrigation elite’s elitist elites are the grape growers of northern Sonoma County.
Their lawyers are not resting.
State Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) is quietly sponsoring legislation to create a new independent special district called the Russian River Irrigation District, which would be operated of, by, and for the growers and their affiliated wineries, tasting rooms, and event centers.
The district would encompass much of the Russian River watershed in northern Sonoma County, and possibly a small portion of southern Mendocino County. The legislation specifically names its purview as being the Alexander Valley, Knights Valley, Dry Creek Valley, and “the territory within the portion of the Russian River Valley American Viticultural Area” and “the portion of the Russian River Valley American Viticultural Area south of River Road and Mark West Creek Road.”
Senator McGuire (of “Marijauna Watershed Protection Act” fame) has yet to introduce the legislation in bill form. Rather, his staff has circulated a “discussion draft” of the proposed legislation to — and I’m intentionally using the in-fashion political jargon here — “interested parties.”
Reportedly, grape growers met on July 27th to discuss the bill and they are not unanimously in favor of it. They still need to iron out a lot of kinks. For that reason, McGuire (who is from Healdsburg, and thus to no small degree a political creature of the wine industry) has yet to bring the bill before the State Legislature.
The main function of irrigation districts generally is to allow agricultural water users the option of controlling their own water rights, rather than be subject to state administrative control or popular eleciton. They have the power to tax all the property in a designated area for the construction and maintenance of dams and canals. Water rights belong to the water district rather than to individual water users.
Read more at: Wine Industry Water Grab? | Anderson Valley Advertiser